


The Dark Ages

by Kurohitenshi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arya is Nissa Nissa, Character Death, Dark, F/M, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jon Snow is Azor Ahai, Post-War, Romance, Soulmates, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24657979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurohitenshi/pseuds/Kurohitenshi
Summary: Jon Snow is Azor Ahai and Arya Stark is his Nissa Nissa. There is a prophecy that they cannot escape. But the gods have fashioned them to be made for one another and no matter how many centuries it takes, Jon was determined to find Arya once more, to keep her by his side forever.For Jonrya Week: A Dream of SpringDay 3: Guilt | SinInspired by the book "The Vampire Armand"
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83
Collections: Jonrya Week: A Dream of Spring





	The Dark Ages

The Great War was what they called it when Westeros banded together for a fight to the death against the Others. Thousands of men marched North and fought side by side, using Winterfell as the battleground against the undead. In that war, there were no more Starks, Targaryens, Lannisters, Tyrells, Greyjoys, Tullys, Arryns, Baratheons, or Martells. Shoulder to shoulder, knowing that any moment could be their last, they were all just humans struggling for the survival of their species.

King Jon Stark, who had been the legitimised heir of Robb, had been the leader that banded together most of the forces. However, he had help with Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons and armies from Essos, Bran Stark with his greenseering and warging magic, Tyrion Lannister and his gift of battle strategies and lore knowledge, and Arya Stark with her armies comprised of freed Northmen, Rivermen, Brotherhood without Banners and Nymeria's wolfpack.

The battle had commenced when the Others breached the Wall. They took Castle Black and countless holdfasts, town, and villages in The Gift. It was only a matter of time when the army of the dead reached Winterfell.

A terrible and sombre mood fell in the castle's residents as they awaited the wights and White Walkers. It was apparent that against an army that doesn't rest, eat, and who kept on gaining new forces as people died, humanity was on the brink of extinction. All of them felt entirely hopeless until Melisandre came to them during a war meeting.

"Darkness lay over the world and a hero, Azor Ahai, was chosen to fight against it. To fight the darkness, Azor Ahai needed to forge a hero's sword. After multiple attempts and failures, with a heavy heart, for he knew beforehand what he must do to finish the blade, he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes."

They all looked from Melisandre to Jon, looking uncomfortable.

Melisandre continued as she watched him avidly, "There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed, and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour, a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him."

Jon growled at her. "We are here for a war strategy meeting, not your sordid prophecies. Begone woman!"

But she only stared at him with something akin to pity before turning her head to look straight at Arya who stood right next to him.

Jon's blood turned to ice, and he stepped in front of Arya, sheilding her from the priestess's view. "Your life is forfeit the moment you dare to hurt my sister."

She bowed her head as if she was genuinely apologetic. But before leaving the room, she left him one last cryptic advice. "You will have to decide if one person is worth more than all of humanity, Your Grace."

Jon would never forget that day and her words. He ordered Melisandre to be chained in the dungeons where she wouldn't be able to carry out her evil deeds. But in his worry and panic about the ongoing war, he forgot about Arya's curious and willful nature. It would cause disastrous consequences later on.

"I spoke to her," Arya told him later on as they lay in the king's chambers. She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "And I know what must be done, Jon."

He gasped, staring into her eyes, fear gripping his heart. "That woman has made countless mistakes in the past. The fact that you have king's blood is a source of allure for her. Arya, you have no idea what she is capable of doing. Please do not revisit her."

"I set her free," she informed him, looking away guiltily.

"You what!?" Jon demanded, his voice rising. When he saw her recoiling at his anger, he took a deep, calming breath, trying to reign in his rage. "Arya, why would you do such a thing? You would defy me?"

"Yes, I defied my king," she muttered, sitting up and turning away from him. Her posture was rigid, her bare back trembling all of a sudden from the cold. "And I'm sorry. But if there is a chance for the world to be saved…"

"What did Melisandre tell you?" he asked. He sat up too, moving her much longer hair aside so that he could press his lips at the back of her neck. "And I'm sorry for being angry. It wasn't directed to you truly. I just know what the red priestess is capable of. I don't want to see you hurt."

She turned her head so she could look up at him. "Do you love me, Jon?"

His heart skipped a beat at the look she had in her eyes. As if she had any reason to doubt it. "I would move heaven and earth for you, little wolf. Even if the gods themselves kidnapped you from me, I would defy them and choose you a thousand times over."

She smiled at him, a heartbreakingly, devastating smile.

Little did he know that it would be the last smile he would see of hers.

In all the centuries afterwards, Jon would replay that scene over and over in his mind. That and the moment when he pulled Longclaw from Melisandre's heart, his anger for her beyond compare. The red priestess had been seen leading Arya to the godswood, and then after that, he couldn't find his beloved girl anymore.

What Jon did not expect was for his sword to burst into flame just like in the prophecies. The woman with the red priestess's glamour fell to the ground as the real Melisandre stepped out of the shadows behind the heart tree.

Confused and with fear coursing through his heart, Jon turned to the figure crumpled on the ground, next to his boots. The blood was seeping into the snow in front of the weirwood, and oh god, there was a lot of it. And the face…

It was Arya who looked up at him with lifeless eyes, her hands locked tight around Needle's hilt.

"The prophecy has been fulfilled," Melisandre had the gall to say. "Humanity will be saved by Azor Ahai. Arya Stark died nobly for this cause. They will sing songs about her for thousands of years. Of her role as your Nissa Nissa."

Jon fell to his knees, dropping the flaming sword. He gathered his little sister to his chest desperately. Arya's body was quickly cooling in the snow, and he could neither hear her heartbeat nor see her chest moving up and down. He screamed his raw emotion so loudly that his throat ached: rage and agony beyond compare. It felt worse than death.

He had killed her - murdered Arya Stark, the person he loved the most in the world. Nothing would ever be the same again.

_Stick them with the pointy end._

After that, numb, Jon had done his duty for his people and the rest of Westeros. With his flaming sword, he let out his anger on the enemy, hacking and slashing and wanting to die. But he did not die. Instead, he took out the leader of the Others, causing the rest of the White Walkers and wights to fall along with him.

As soon as the battle was over, Jon went back to Arya's body. She was so still and silent in the darkness, a little thing covered in snow. He held her cold, limp hand and brushed his lips on her knuckles. The rest of the dead bodies were burned in a mass funeral pyre. But Jon had Melisandre brought to him, demanding for her to resurrect his sister in the same way he had been long ago.

"Only R'hllor decides this, not I," she said to him with pity in her eyes. "The death of the Northern Princess is final. Her life force was used in ending this war. And no, she can't have lived in her wolf. That is not how sacrifice works. The death of Nissa Nissa is final."

"Then your life is forfeit!" Jon roared at her, drawing his sword out of its scabbard with a hiss.

"I have lived for too long and the time has come," she agreed, almost looking relieved. "But know this. Azor Ahai and Nissa Nissa were always meant to be together. The gods have fashioned her to belong to you only, you alone. You are not only a fire wight, but your actions during the war have granted you immortality from the gods, forever a king if you like. Now you could search for your beloved again throughout the ages. She will be born again. And she shall be yours again, immortal just like you and -"

Before she could say anything else, Jon slashed the sharp blade of his sword across her neck angrily, cutting through flesh, tendons, and bone, separating her head from the rest of her body. Her body crumpled on the polished wooden floor of the King's chambers as her blood seeped out from under her.

"Valar Morgulis," he whispered as he turned to Arya's cold body, remembering the last time she had been here with him – her sad smile at him. These were her words as well, something she had taught to him. "I will find you again, my bride. And I will never let you go once I have you."

***

Jon relinquished the North to Bran and exiled himself to the Lands of Always Winter. He stayed there for nearly ten years before going back to Winterfell to meet with the brothers he had been raised with. Bran had become the second coming of Bran the Builder while Rickon as his heir was a well-supported Prince of Winterfell who bridged the North with the free folk. Jon tried to find solace with his cousins, but all his waking hours were spent underfoot, sitting before Arya Stark's tomb. Every day, he brought her all kinds of flowers, praying to the gods to find her soon.

But the years went on and on, each one a penance. And as his body remained that of a young man in his immortality, Bran and Rickon aged into their advanced years. Jon watched Rickon's children grow into young men and women, feeling forlorn at seeing a flock of them wherever he went. Winterfell became a bastion full of redheaded Starks, a memento from Lady Catelyn of House Tully.

His heart was shattered beyond repair, longing to find a fierce girl with Northern features: brown hair that he could muss and clear storm grey eyes that looked at him as if he hung the moon for her.

And so Jon left Westeros and went eastwards towards Essos, all the while carrying Needle on his hip as if she was its embodiment. He moved from all the Free Cities, wondering if he was a fool for believing the red priestess's final words to him – that he would find Arya again one day. But no matter what city he went to, Jon could not find his Arya.

At the turn of the century, Jon decided to retrace Arya's footsteps from the moment she left Winterfell, parting with him for the first time. By that time, there was a new king in the Southern capital, although Jon paid him no attention.

Jon searched for Arya in King's Landing, checking every nook and cranny, including the brothels in Flea Bottom. He was prepared for the worst and if he had to wage war again to get her back then so be it. But he did not find her face in both the perfumed brothels of the highborn or amongst the prostitutes of Flea Bottom.

He kept himself moving, travelling up and down the continent. Despite searching all over Westeros though, including Dorne, Jon was disappointed to find no trace of her.

And so Jon decided to set up a base in Braavos where Arya had spent a lot of time before. He purchased a house along the glittering green canal, making sure that he created the perfect bedroom to share with Arya. Every few days, he would bring home new flowers that she would love, putting it on a vase on a bedside table on her side of the bed.

Jon spent many years reconstructing his house's many chambers as the Renaissance age came into full swing. He commissioned artists to recreate Winterfell and the godswood on its walls. When the walls were complete, Jon travelled again, heartsick as he tried to find his beloved.

It was almost a thousand years after her death when he found her.

A girl who had her face and her name had been brought in on a slaver's ship from the True North. She was a young wildling who had fierce eyes and anger that couldn't be contained. Jon found her curled up on a pallet on the cold floor of a lowborn brothel, with a dirty face and messy hair. She snarled at him like a direwolf when he peered in from the other side of the cold steel bars.

This Arya was so like his beloved, skinny and almost savage. Jon bought her from the brothel with more dragons than they asked for. When the bars were opened, she launched herself to him with her teeth bared. She tried to fight him with her sharp elbows and knees, but she soon tired because of the lack of food in her system, her body going limp in his arms.

Later on, when he had taken her back to his house, he ordered all his servants to leave. When he undressed her to bathe her himself in a pool of warm water, cold blinding rage made him pause when he found dark, finger-shaped bruises all over her body. Someone had hurt her and that someone would suffer under Jon's revenge.

She came to as he lowered her naked body on the warm water. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him in disbelief, seeing him for the first time under the light of a hundred candles. Thankfully, she wasn't trying to fight him this time, letting him gently lather her hair and run his hands down the length of her body, ridding her of all the grime and dirt that clung to her.

Jon almost wanted to avoid cleaning between her legs, but she captured his hand and pressed it there. His heart skipped a beat as he looked into her dark eyes, his hands shaking as he felt the shape of her mound cupped under his fingers.

"I know you," she confessed to him, looking at him with such tenderness that his heart broke. "I've dreamt of you every night ever since I was born. My king."

Jon sobbed, tears flowing for the first time in centuries as he carried her out of the water, holding her tightly on his lap as he clung to her desperately. "I missed you," he whispered to her in agony. "I missed you!"

***

Jon kept a close eye on Arya always. A second chance like that shouldn't be squandered, and he was determined to never part from her again.

As time went on, although his heart could barely take it, he let her go about freely in the city, allowing her to relearn the place she had once lived in centuries ago. Soon enough, she kept coming home to him with a big smile, telling him about all the friends she'd made.

He also made sure to give her the best life. He hired tutors for her, spoiling her in whatever education she desired. Soon, she was learning literature, languages, and history. She was a quick study, pleasing all her teachers. And if there was a man or woman who upset her, Jon quickly replaced them with a better one. She also pursued the arts, including water dancing and ballet. She practised her dancing regularly with Needle in her hand, and Jon was content to watch her as she did, smiling at her encouragingly every time she looked at him, seeking his approval.

Jon also spoiled her with everything she had been denied in this life's childhood. Growing up in extreme poverty in the True North, she had, in this life just like the last, experienced hunger and abuse. Her father sold her to slavers after her mother died, and evil men took advantage of her during her captivity.

Those men and all their ships had burned as soon as Jon learned their names.

And so he dressed Arya in silks, velvet, and satin whenever she wasn't in her fighting clothes. Because she was his queen, Jon commissioned the best seamstress in the city to build her a wardrobe that was to her liking, even including silky underthings under her dress. Those things she began to use as ammunition against him, knowing how weak he became to her wiles whenever she walked around their empty chambers, wearing nothing more than a scrap of silk between her legs.

Jon should've known better than to hope that those long, happy days would last.

Arya's dreams of him since her childhood had been the good ones – that of Winterfell when they grew up together and the soft epilogue of their reunion when nothing else mattered but the two of them behind closed doors. She recalled when the sibling relationship became something more as well as the discovery that they were, in fact, cousins.

One day, the rest of her memories came back to her in a rush, making her scream at the top of her lungs. Jon found her in the long hallway painted with the scenery of godswood, with the heart tree at the end. She was on her knees, her face buried in her hands while her shoulders shook.

When Jon knelt beside her and touched her shoulder, he felt her recoil from him for the first time, breaking his heart completely.

She lowered her hands and peered up at him with so much sorrow. "You were the one who killed me," she whispered, sounding so betrayed. Her bare arms were goose-fleshed as she wrapped them around herself. "Even though I loved you so much, and I knew you loved me the same."

"I'm sorry," Jon apologised to her fiercely for the first time ever. His whole body was taut as he wanted nothing more than to hold her close to him. But her posture told him that she did not welcome his touch, not right now at least. So he whispered to her again, "I'm sorry, Arya."

But she only looked at him with heartbreak. "It was nothing compared to what you went through. I couldn't imagine losing you and living a thousand years looking for you. You must have been lonely," she said to him sincerely, taking his hand into hers. "I'm sorry for not showing up sooner."

Jon shook his head. "I would wait for you until the world ended just to have you in my arms again."

She sobbed, her eyes welling up in tears. And before he knew it, she buried her face against his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist. In turn, he held her as if he was drowning, clinging to her as if there was no tomorrow.

"Don't leave me again!" Jon demanded of her with all his heart, a sob escaping his throat. "Promise me!"

"But how could I?" she asked forlornly. "When you are immortal, and I am not? I will wither into old age while you watch me die again. How could I promise anything?"

They fell into despair, wishing only that time could stop or that the gods remove the curse of Jon's immortality so that they could die together in old age.

But it was an impossible dream.

***

On her knees, the priestess of Asshai prayed to R'hllor in desperation, knowing her life was forfeit if she couldn't save Arya. Unlike Melisandre, this priestess was less prophetic and more practical. Jon had found her ten years ago and had made sure to bring her to Braavos where he could call upon her when he needed her.

It had been two days since Arya caught the fatal fever that was ripping through Essos, most recently spreading all throughout Braavos, sparing no household. She lay on her back, her entire body burning. Her clothes had been removed in her heat, and she was only covered with a thin sheet. Her sleep was fitful, her head thrashing back and forth as she moaned Jon's name.

Jon held her hand, feeling the weight of his helplessness across his shoulders. He had saved humanity from the Others in Westeros a thousand years ago, but now as in back then, he couldn't save the person he loved the most.

The gods were cruel beyond compare.

"R'hllor has spoken," the priestess muttered, staring up at Jon with wide eyes and a pale face. "This girl is none other than the Nissa Nissa to you, Azor Ahai."

"I know that!" Jon exclaimed in exasperation. "Now tell me what I need to do to help her!"

She spoke in a hushed tone as if she was breaking her covenant with her god as she revealed to him, "She is immortal too. There may not have been feats for her in this life, but the gods don't forget. All the gods from R'hllor to the Old and the New – they know about this girl's sacrifice. She will survive this."

Jon turned to Arya once more, daring to hope. Was it a lie, or was it the truth that the gods have gifted her immortality too?

The next day, Jon was beside her as her fever broke. The maester who treated her assured Jon that she had gone through the worst, but she will need to regain her strength to make a full recovery.

Jon had been there every step of the way, nursing her back to health. He fed her, bathed her, and told her stories about their old lives together. She listened to him avidly, watching him with fondness.

"I heard that I was immortal," Arya said to him one time when he took her to the gardens so that she could see the new flowers that were in bloom. "Or was it a dream?"

"You are immortal according to a priestess of R'hllor. The life you had sacrificed in the past has been returned to you a hundredfold. I suspect it could be true, but I will be with you always, ready to protect you from anything that could hurt you in any way."

"If I'm immortal," she realised, looking at him avidly. "Then I'll be with you forever."

Jon nodded. "Through the medieval ages, the age of the last dragons, the renaissance, and to the future that is unknown. I am Azor Ahai, and you are my Nissa Nissa. The gods have fashioned us to be heroes but at great personal cost. Perhaps this is how they are paying us back. Immortality with one another."

She smiled at him. "It will be grand, watching the world's story unfold with you. As long as we're together, I think I could manage it."

Jon pulled her close to him on the bench they were sitting on and kissed her on the cheek. "It won't be a hardship for me too."

The priestess, they found out, was telling the truth. Arya stopped ageing just as he once did, both of them young forever. They lived through the Renaissance, the Dark Ages, the World Wars, and the Scientific Revolution. They watched from afar as the North was led by men and women from Rickon's line. The North grew prosperous as it united with the True North.

Jon and Arya remained by each other's side, moving from place to place to escape the public attention that would be placed on them if they were discovered to never age. They visited all corners of the world and became the heroes they used to be once, helping the unfortunate, the poor, and the powerless. Together and never apart again.

**Author's Note:**

> On an unrelated note, to reassure those who follow me for A Heart's Home, I was planning to release the next chapter hopefully at the end of Jonrya Week. Writing these one-shots has been helping me in the writing process. Thanks for reading. :)


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